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Mesa 7.1 Released, X.Org 7.4 Coming!

08-26-2008, 07:40 PM

Phoronix: Mesa 7.1 Released, X.Org 7.4 Coming!

Tungsten's Brian Paul has today announced the release of Mesa 7.1. New in this open-source library used by Linux graphics drivers for providing OpenGL support is autoconf-based configuration, assorted DRI driver enhancements, reduced dependencies between the X server and Mesa, GL_EXT_texture_from_pixmap extension for Xlib driver, GLSL (GL Shading Language) support for the Intel 965, and ATI Radeon R500 (X1000) series support...

Comment

Yes mesa 7.1 does support the r500 cards, and they work pretty well. Unfortunately, they only have about OpenGL 1.3 right now, and the 3d performance is about half of what you get with fglrx (2d performance is better, though). In short, r500 cards are easily usable, but the support still lacks features and performance.

OpenGL 2 (and one day, possibly 3) are supposed to come with gallium3D, but gallium has been held up by the DRM rejiggering. Fortunately, it looks like GEM will become the standard, and gallium support can be built on that.

Comment

Yes mesa 7.1 does support the r500 cards, and they work pretty well. Unfortunately, they only have about OpenGL 1.3 right now, and the 3d performance is about half of what you get with fglrx (2d performance is better, though). In short, r500 cards are easily usable, but the support still lacks features and performance.

OpenGL 2 (and one day, possibly 3) are supposed to come with gallium3D, but gallium has been held up by the DRM rejiggering. Fortunately, it looks like GEM will become the standard, and gallium support can be built on that.

Ah.. I see. Thanks!
Too bad Gallium will start being usable for stable use by the end of next year or something..
And why can't Mesa implement a newer GL release?

Comment

So I guess that means compiz can now run without any sort of 3d card, entirely on the CPU (or not, if there's other extensions it depends on). I wonder how much CPU it requires for a typical desktop...

In general, I think I can live without OpenGL 2/3 for now. Just let 2D(EXA), Desktop Effects and Video playback work flawlessly. ;-)

I understand, that Video/3D apps will flicker in Window mode, when Desktop Effects on, till somebody implement DRI2.. But I'm expecting that there are no reasons no to play them played correctly in the following cases:
- Desktop Effects: OFF -- Video/3D to be played correctly in both Window/Fullscreen mode;
- Desktop Effects: ON -- Video/3D to be played correctly in Fullscreen mode.

Can we really expect something like this?

And finally: what about AIGLX? Isn't that required for normal functioning of Compiz-like WMs on ATI/AMD cards? Or, this is a part of Xorg (how to check fo which Cards 7.4 has hardware-accelerated AIGLX)?

Comment

Uhm, "overlay" is what in gentoo are external repositories for debian/ubuntu. Those are just "overlaying" the content of the normal package manager tree and thus providing some additional packages and other versions. The portage overlay for X11 eg includes git ebuilds for xorg stuff. It has *nothing* to do with video overlay stuff, it is package manager wording.